Co-ordinated Taliban attacks kill dozens in Pakistan

The Taliban launched pre-emptive strikes against targets across Pakistan on Thursday, killing 39 people in five separate attacks as they sought to deter a planned assault on their stronghold near the Afghan frontier.

In the space of a few hours, the extremists carried out three assaults in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, and detonated car bombs in two cities in North West Frontier Province. Their aim was to drive home the cost of a government offensive against the Taliban's crucial havens in South Waziristan, a Tribal Area bordering Afghanistan.

In Lahore, gunmen attacked two police training centres and the office of the Federal Investigation Agency. Meanwhile, a suicide bomber killed 11 when he rammed his car into a police station in the town Kohat, near the Afghan frontier. Later, a bomb concealed inside a vehicle exploded outside a housing complex for government employees in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, killing a six-year-old boy and wounding nine others, most of them women and children.

"The militants are pre-empting an attack on South Waziristan. They want to dilute the military force by dispersing it all the country and create confusion and doubt in the minds of the public," said Hasham Baber, a senior member of the Awami National Party, which runs the regional government in Peshawar.

In the past, most of the Taliban's attacks were concentrated in the north-west, the home of the Pashtun people who once provided most of their recruits. But the extremist movement has now spread beyond its traditional support base to penetrate much of the rest of Pakistan, including Punjab, the best developed and most populous province. The network built by the Taliban seems able to strike at will across the country.

The first assault took place in Lahore at about 9am when gunmen raided Federal Investigation Agency. In the next 90 minutes, they killed four officials and a bystander. Two of the attackers, one of whom was wearing a suicide bomb vest, also died. A police officer gingerly removed the vest from the corpse of one gunman, lying in a pool of blood.

A second group then struck a police training school on the outskirts of the city, killing nine officers. The police fought back, killing one gunman, while the other three committed suicide by blowing themselves up.

A third force scaled the back wall of another police training centre near Lahore airport. Some of the attackers made it onto the roofs of houses inside the sprawling compound. Two of the assailants were shot, while three others also blew themselves up when they were surrounded by the army and police. A police paramedic and a civilian also died.

Tens of thousands of troops have been mobilised for the expected offensive in South Waziristan. This lawless area provides a haven for Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, who took command of the movement after his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by an American predator drone in August. The army's assault on the Tribal Area is thought to be imminent.